Goodbye, George 2008

The great George Carlin has died.

Not "passed on". Not "expired" (like a magazine subscription). We just lost a great critic, so celebrate his life by watching or listening to some of his comedy. Here's a good place to start: George on language.

2008

Mattijn's book is available! 2008

Photomontaged Daydreams
Originally uploaded by Mattijn.

Fellow fans of photo-artist Mattijn Franssen will be pleased to learn that his work is busting out of the confines of Flickr and into book form.

I've been impressed by the quality of Blurb publications in the past, so I'll be getting a copy of this one.

I like Banksy. 2005

You should go visit his site.

My sexy wordsmith friends make me happy. 2005

Seth wrote "I mostly let my music appliance randomly weave through its 40GB of joy like a stoned magpie in a tinsel factory..."

Lovely!

Time to let iTunes work its random magic.

Go see a play this week. 2005

Tonight I saw the one-man play "I Am My Own Wife" and was dazzled. Not only by the story of a fascinating human being, but by the writing, the stagecraft and most of all by Jefferson Mays rich and personal performance. It's at the Curran Theatre on Geary through the 29th and you should go buy yourself some tickets.

It seems like in the theater these days people leap to their feat for the standing ovation for even mediocre performances of weak shows; this one actually deserves it.

Interpret THIS. 2004

When I first woke up this morning it was from a dream of which I remember three things:
1) One of my co-workers going to perform with his band (so far as I know he doesn't even really play an instrument) under a different name ("Rick Conners") and performing for what I understood in the dream to be an office party (for some other company than ours) at which all the guests were dressed on the theme "Caribbean vacation". Many of them were near-nude, pasty white, at least 20 lbs overweight and displaying red acne rashes on their backsides. (This was the first traumatic part of the dream).

2) I was in a forested area and there were some construction vehicles around. My friend Jeff Veen was sitting in the driver seat of a sort of forklift thing and playing the Autumn part from Vivaldi's Four Seasons on the cello. He was really into it doing all kinds of wild things like playing with both hands and doing percussive things with his thumbs. (Clearly an amalgam of the actual playing style of Jess Ivry and Safa Shokai in Bright River). (This was the really great part of the dream).

3) I was being chased by a moose. It bit my hand. (At which point I woke up and found I had kind of rolled onto my arm and was uncomfortable).

See it. 2004

See it. See it. See it.

The Bright River, "a mass transit tour of the afterlife", is amazing. I went to a preview night after which there was a little bit of Q&A and then some mingling over wine and cookies, then a walk up to Mission (from Florida & Mariposa where the theater is), then a cab ride home. Surely time to calm, to back off from the experience, but my heart is still full to bursting, tears still in the corners of my eyes, laughter still on my tongue.

Yes!

Go. Get tickets now. Go see it.

Tim Barsky and the everyday ensemble have a story to tell you.